Once we finished sampling some new products at the Betty Crocker Test Kitchens, the bloggers from General Mill’s Eat n’ Greet event headed over to the General Mills photo studios. This was the part of the event that Cooking with Amy, Cookie Madness and I were all excited to get to. The photo studios are not only where General Mills shoots its cookbooks and web photos, it is also where the food packaging photos are taken. They probably take hundreds of thounsands of photos inside the studio, from everyday snaps of a new brownie recipe to the photo of a bowl full of Cheerios that adorns the box for the next decade. And how often do you get the chance to meet a bunch of professional food photographers?
It was difficult to tell exactly how large the studios were, but they were spacious to say the least. There were cameras set up in front of light boxes, near windows with adjustable screens and in full-sized kitchens. There were also computers and flat-screen displays everywhere because the studio is in the process of going paperless. All of the printing is done in-house, where the printers are calibrated to the colors seen on screen after each photo is taken. The overall process went something like this: make the food, take the photos, view photos, retake photos as many times as necessary, print photos or send out for publication. Did you notice the first step? They make all of the food inside the photography studio’s kitchens so that it is fresh and so that the photographers have a good sense of the ingredients and composition of the food.
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When you picture the kitchens for big companies, companies that test out recipes for books and magazines, or companies that develop packaged baking products, you probably picture a huge professional kitchen: stainless steel everywhere, convection ovens, huge noisy hoods over the cooktops and people in white chefs’ coats. This might be the atmosphere at some test kitchens, but not at the Betty Crocker Test Kitchens, which are some of the busiest kitchens in the country. The test kitchens have been around since 1921, developing recipes for home cooks. Today, not only do they develop recipes there, but they extensively test the various packaged products produced by General Mills that come out under the Betty Crocker name (they test other GM products there, as well). Along with Cooking with Amy, Cookie Madness, Bakerella and Picky Palate, I was able to take a little behind the scenes tour of the test kitchens last week at an event hosted by General Mills called the Eat n’ Greet.
The kitchens are just that – multiple kitchen setups in one very large and well lit room. There are 19 complete kitchens and over 7,000-square feet of space. Having 19 kitchens means that there are actually 19 cooktops, but there are actually 50 ovens in the space. I can’t imagine even trying to fill that many ovens, although there are days when it certainly would be nice to have access to that many at once! More than 2,000 recipes are developed for various publications, packaging and the web every year. The facility is a new one, so it’s not surprising that everything looks sparkling clean. Despite the huge size of the kitchens, only about a dozen people work down there on a regular basis. I suspect that lots of people manage to wander by for snacks during the day.
The kitchens are set up like home kitchens because all the recipes developed here are for home bakers in home kitchens, not professional chefs. Even though those who work in the kitchen are pros, they try to keep everything to the same equipment and same circumstances that we might find in our own kitchens to ensure that the recipes work when you’re dealing with regular ovens and regular pans.
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The Julie/Julia Project was a blog about one woman’s – Julie’s – adventure of cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child. The blog was eventually turned into a book, Julie and Julia, and that book has now been turned into a major motion picture of the same name. It stars Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie Powell. Luckily for me, I was recently invited to a screening for bloggers, along with Matt Bites, Cooking With Amy, Food Blogga, Daily Dish, Squid Ink, Eater LA, Steamy Kitchen and Food GPS, where we got to see the movie a few weeks before its official release on August 7. I can’t give a full review right now, but I will say that I enjoyed the film a lot. It definitely made me want to do some French cooking – almost as much as my recent Paris trip did. Doesn’t Meryl (below) make a great stand-in for Julia ?
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My homemade girl scout cookies have hit the big time. They’re in print – and not just on Baking Bites! People Magazine’s country music special issue (released this month) has a three page feature that includes my three most popular girl scout cookie recipes: Do-Si-Dos, Samoas and Thin Mints. The recipes have been slightly simplified from the versions posted here, so they’re a bit less time consuming to make and are probably a bit more accessible to the occasional baker, even though they’re not quite as exacting as I tried to make the originals. They’re all delicious, whichever recipes you decide to try.
Speaking of simplifying recipes, it’s too bad that my homemade Samoas Bars came out too late to be featured in the magazine, as well. They’re even easier than the classic Samoas and feature all the caramel chocolate goodness of the original.
After a fun day at the 43rd Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off, I couldn’t wait until I got to the awards ceremony this morning to see who had won. Fortunately, the ceremony started at 7:30 am central time and I didn’t have to wait for long until the master of ceremonies (and semi-homemade cooking) Sandra Lee took the stage and started to read the winners.
Prizes were announced for each of the five categories: Breakfast & Brunches, Pizza Creations, Entertaining Appetizers, Old El Paso Mexican Favorites and Sweet Treats. The grand prize winner was selected from the category winners, each of whom also won $5,000.
I’m not going to keep anyone in suspense here. The winner of the $1 million dollard grand prize was Carolyn Gurtz (pictured above) with her Sweet Treats recipe for Double-Delight Peanut Butter Cookies. The cookies use refrigerated peanut butter cookie dough and shape it around a ball of what is essentially peanut butter candy. The overall effect is a good one, although I admit that I would try the filling with one of my regular peanut butter cookie dough recipes, refrigerating the dough and using it in place of a store-bought version. (Update: I made a homemade version of the winning recipe!) Carolyn also won the sponsor award for best use of Jif Peanut Butter, bringing her total prize money to $1,010,000!
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